Husk
by Emantsal
Summary: A small look at Shepard after Thane's death as seen through the eyes of his son, Kolyat, and her best friend.  Rated T for mild language.


"How is she today?" the young Drell asked as he entered the room. He'd taken to stopping by after work. He'd made a promise.

"About the same as yesterday. No change." Garrus Vakarian replied, getting up from the overstuffed couch where he'd been watching a news holovid. His voice sounded tired, and Kolyat noticed the man had aged in the last few months.

"She said your father visited her again this morning." He walked to the kitchen and opened a cold storage bin, taking out two beers, one for himself, the other from Thane's son.

"She's not getting any better Mr. Vakarian, is she? I mean, it's been over six months since my dad died and…" Kolyat looked down at the beer in his hand and then took several large gulps.

"Thane was her world, the reason she lived and breathed. She'd been through so much when they met. You know, it was supposed to be a suicide mission. We weren't supposed to make it back…"

"I didn't know… So that's one of the reason's my father finally got in touch with me," he knew he sounded bitter, but life just sucked some times. "He never really told me what happened. He wouldn't talk about what he did."

"I guess it doesn't matter now. No matter what she did, the Council covered it up, acted as if everything she said was a lie." He motioned for the younger man to take a seat at the kitchen table.

"Shepard and your dad, all of us on the Normandy were on a single mission, to stop the Collectors from harvesting every human in the galaxy.

"Harvesting? Strange choice of words Mr. Vakarian..." Isn't that what farmers did to their crops?

"Garrus…just call me Garrus. Mr. Vakarian was my father." He sighed and finished off his beer. "Anyway, the Collectors were attacking the outlying human settlements in the Terminus Systems and…," he grimaced remembering the grizzly scenes on the Collector ship and on the Mother ship. Human bodies reduced to piles of flesh and bone, the smell of rot and decay… "They were… reducing them to DNA paste and building a human reaper. They'd already killed hundreds of thousands of people. Shepard and your father stood between them and the Reapers destroying the galaxy as we know it."

Kolyat's eyes seemed to get bigger in a face that lost much of its color. He'd heard the stories of Commander Shepard, Savior of the Citadel, first human Specter. It was rumor that she'd killed a Reaper, but then Reapers were myth right, a legend?

"Ummm… DNA paste? Is that as bad as it sounds?" He shuttered at the images those words conjured in his mind. Paste? He shuttered again…

"Worse. So much worse…" Garrus closed his eyes and leaned his head back. Finally looking up at the ceiling he continued. "Shepard, your father, and I… we traveled through the galaxy fighting the Collectors. We found a dead Reaper, took the IFF system. Shepard made sure we made peace with ourselves before we attacked the Collector Homeworld. Your dad knew it was likely we wouldn't return. He wanted to put things right just in case. Hell, none of us expected to make it through the Omega-4 Relay alive…"

"You went through the Omega-4 Relay?" Kolyat interrupted, suddenly leaning forward in his chair, expression intent as he looked at the Turian. "That's not possible. No one has ever returned from there."

Garrus looked over his shoulder and out onto the apartment's patio. Surrounded by lush plants and trees, a small fountain bubbling in the corner, she sat in a chair looking out over the dying light of the artificial Citadel evening.

"She survived Eden Prime, Ilos, Saren… a fucking Reaper. An attack by a Collector ship where she got spaced and fucking died. Cerberus scooped up the pieces and spent two years bringing her back to life. She fought Geth, Collectors, made it through the Omega-4 and took out the Collector Home Base. But this…" he looked back at her, still gazing at the dying light. "I don't think she'll survive this."

Kolyat looked past the Turian at the woman bathed in the glow of the artificial setting sun. As beautiful as ever, Elisa Shepard, the woman who had stayed by his father till the end, the human woman who had dared to love Thane Krios, an alien… "My dad said something before he died, I didn't understand it. We'd been arguing. I called him a freak for being with a human. I didn't understand how why they were together, why he seemed to love her. I mean, he'd said he loved my mom. I didn't understand how he could be with her, if he still loved my mom." On the patio, the woman continued to look out into the growing night. Every night it was the same. No emotion… no life. It was like she had died with his dad, but her body remained.

"He said that my mom would always have his heart, but that Shepard was a part of his soul."

"And I believe that he was part of hers," Garrus said, almost in a whisper. Shepard, his Shepard was gone. She body still breathed, but the spark that had been Elisa Shepard was gone. All that as left was a husk. And when she died, that's all he'd be, too.


End file.
